Raycom Sports: After All These Years, Still the Best

Many Hurricane fans are new to the superior product delivered by Raycom Sports throughout the Southeast. I however, have been watching Raycom telecasts in one form or another for over twenty years and have always been impressed by telecast, its production and its value to regional fans of the ACC and SEC.

In my days as a student at the University of Florida JP Sports (now Raycom for SEC telecasts) was the lifeblood of SEC Basketball. Before the emergence of Florida and Tennessee as national powers the SEC has changed the number of SEC games on "mainstream" platforms, but Raycom still does the best job covering the league. That was in full evidence yesterday at the SEC Tournament with the legends of SEC basketball broadcasting including Tim Brando calling the games with an awesome presentation and a knowledge of every team playing something sorely lacking in today's ESPN, stat driven culture. The SEC telecasts were always flavored with localized announcers who knew the league backward and forward including the exceptional Tom Hammond who still calls the Wednesday night games which usually feature two of the better teams in the league.

The SEC is wonderful to watch but Raycom's bread and butter has always been the ACC. I have watched ACC Basketball on Raycom since our local FOX affiliate who had been spurned by NBC when GE bought the former CBS affiliate down here in 1988, picked up the ACC package. The broadcasts to my novice eyes were instantly more credible than the College Basketball broadcasts on CBS and ESPN. In those days despite losing tournament rights, NBC had the best regular season package and the best play by play Basketball announcers but when NBC essentially dropped all College Basketball not involving Notre Dame in 1990 after losing out on the Tournament rights yet again Raycom stood above the others. Throughout my College years (the early-mid 1990s) and beyond Raycom and JP Sports were my preferred vehicle for watching College Basketball. Raycom's telecasts were so superior that without a rooting interest I was hooked on the ACC, which simply increased when Miami moved to the ACC.

The deans of Raycom's ACC broadcasts are Tim Brant and Billy Packer. Most viewers know these two for other reasons. Tim Brant was at one time CBS' leading College Football analyst until CBS lost the rights to the now defunct CFA in 1990. Billy Packer has called the NCAA Final Four for NBC and CBS since 1975, yet he has continued to broadcast midweek ACC games in relative obscurity.

What is amazing in this day and age driven by ESPN inspired hyperbole about the game best typified by Dick Vitale who knows very little about the teams he broadcasts games of, Billy Packer still does his homework and clearly studies the finer points of any team he watches. For example, each of the past four Billy Packer has called several Miami games and demonstrated a knowledge of a relatively obscure team he would never until this season discuss on CBS that exceeds even the beat writers for the team in the local papers. The same can be said of Mike Gminski who is the lead analyst on FSN's ACC Sunday Night Hoops Package and the #2 analyst midweek who knows every league team like the back of his hand. When ESPN broadcasts an ACC game, if the team isn't Duke or North Carolina it is obvious Mike Patrick and whomever his analyst for the night is are just learning about the teams they are watching in the first several minutes of the game. But this is the ESPN culture and for hardcore College Basketball fans like myself it should be rejected.

Raycom has in its various incarnations (JP Sports for the SEC; Raycom/JP for the ACC) broadcast the biggest SEC and ACC games for years now. In this era of loud cable channels and big money TV contracts, the localized syndicators still do it best here in the Southeast. For hardcore fans of the ACC and SEC no substitute exists nor will their ever be.